Suspected al-Qaida Militants Attack Gov't Building in S Yemen

September 8, 2011, Xinhua

Suspected al-Qaida militants Thursday attacked a government building in the southern port city of Aden, leaving two policemen seriously injured, a local security official said.

Suspected al-Qaida militants fired three stun grenades at a government building in the al-Mualla district of Aden, leaving two policemen critically injured, the official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Following the attack, sporadic gun shots toward the building were heard, local residents said.

Government authorities tightened security measures in the city, deploying armored vehicles across the streets and conducting intensive inspections for cars heading to Aden, witnesses said.

In Aden's neighboring province of Lahj, another local security official said that suspected al-Qaida militants fired rocket- propelled grenades at the Military Intelligence Agency headquarters in al-Houta city, the provincial capital of Lahj.

No information about casualties was available, he said, adding that tension escalated in the city as a number of terrorists fled to Lahj during the past two weeks from Zinjibar city in Abyan province, where government forces have launched a crackdown on the al-Qaida group.

Meanwhile, a source close to the al-Qida militants said that leading members of the group in Abyan vowed to move their battles with the army forces to the neighboring provinces of Aden and Shabwa after scores of terrorists were killed in air strikes and army offensives.

Militants of the al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) have taken advantage of the country's political turmoil to seize several towns in the nearly lawless southern and eastern provinces.